The organization responsible for the reliability of the U.S. and Canadian power grids said on Nov. 9 that generation resources could be tight across a large portion of North America on the coldest days this winter.

The North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) said its 2022-2023 Winter Reliability Assessment warned: “that a large portion of the North American bulk power system is at risk of having insufficient energy supplies during severe winter weather.”

The U.S. has been beset by extreme weather events in recent years that forced power grid operators to impose rotating outages, as happened during a February 2021 freeze in Texas and an August 2020 heat wave in California.

Earlier this year, federal energy regulators and regional electric grid operators raised concerns about power reliability during the summer in the U.S. Midwest territory of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO).

Federal regulators also warned that the New England region faced its highest energy costs in more than 25 years this winter due to tight heating oil supplies and fierce competition for LNG.

NERC said the assessment concluded that “high peak-demand projections, inadequate generator weatherization, fuel supply risks, and limited natural gas infrastructure are contributory factors to reliability risk.”

It added that it will hold a briefing on the winter assessment on Nov. 17.

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